Chapter 410
Chapter 410
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 410
Chapter Title: Chapter. 18. Railed (14)
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Bubble bubble bubble bubble—
Clack.
Volteus set down the magic stone on the small hot plate, then poured water from the appropriately boiled kettle into a teacup.
Pour—
The bitter aroma of Straug mountain tea mushrooms rising with the hot steam.
Even though all his lingering attachment to his hometown had faded away, the scent of tea that had stuck to his palate since childhood was not something he could easily forget.
“Another day draws to a close.”
The rooftop of the station at dusk. Sitting in the open space and sipping tea while watching the sunset was Volteus’s long-standing hobby, so he had brought a chair up to the building’s roof as soon as they arrived.
“Hmm.”
A city shrouded in blue steam. People wiping sweat from their oil-grimed hands. Forges spewing orange flames as if jealous of the sunset in the sky, and people still bustling even as dusk fell.
Compared to the sunsets met with the wind atop a moving train, it wasn’t the most pleasant sight, but the cityscape from on high had its own charm.
Thinking of it that way, it was a decent rest, even if not perfect.
Squish squish squish squish.
“No... it shouldn’t take this long...”
No, it *had* been a decent rest.
If not for the one who had stolen his chair, forced him to the floor, and was now gnawing her nails while staring desperately down the alley beyond.
“Naelda.”
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap.
“Naelda, calm down.”
“Shut it, Volteus. I’m agitated just like you said.”
Naelda.
An elf he could somewhat call his mentor.
He certainly harbored gratitude toward her... but watching her up close made those feelings wear thin.
‘How did I end up tangled with someone like this?’
Volteus inwardly sighed at the sight of the emotionally unstable elf shaking her legs in his chair.
“Marriage would have been the better route after all.”
“Naelda.”
“Not just anyone, but with Gerry and Bout! Those dwarf bastards are as timid as their height—what can they possibly pull off?”
“You agreed to the plan yourself.”
“Th-that’s because I was a bit excited then! Wizards are all smart, right? But thinking about it now... the guy’s lifespan won’t even hit ten years! He’s a kid!”
Naelda spat out fluid dwarf-bashing curses even as she chewed her nails. They were the kind who’d dig a hole and hide when pissed off, the type who’d squeal and spill every plan if Delpiad so much as yelled—ultimately, only provocative, sensational topics could turn a human brain to mush, blah blah blah...
Yap yap! Ack ack!
...Slurp—
‘No peace for me.’
His mind was too rattled to savor the tea’s aroma. How had such a rebel emerged from the elves, once called the race of living trees, known for their serenity?
‘And how did I end up giving my heart to such an absurd being?’
Even with his sole daily pleasure disrupted, Volteus was pleased that Naelda, anxious as she was, had sought him out and sat by his side. A Shard Knight who could enter self-discipline atop a train wouldn’t be deterred from his tea by mere noise.
“Volteus! If I can’t recruit that wizard, my stomach’s gonna ache me to death for real? Should I intervene now? Huh? Huh??”
It was all because of Naelda’s white calf twitching beside him on the floor.
“...Care for some tea?”
“No thanks. Trees don’t drink boiling water.”
“Then I’ll have yours. It’s more edible than elf nails.”
Pour—
“...You rock-headed fool. You were so soft and fun as a kid.”
“Rocks are the foundation of hope and life, so not a bad compliment.”
Volteus smiled faintly at Naelda, who had chosen the teacup over leg-shaking.
The city and sunset. Warm tea and Naelda.
‘A moment worth remembering.’
Volteus resolved to commit this scene to memory for the sake of what lay ahead. For a Shard Knight, good memories held meaning equal to lifespan.
The moment he lifted his head to etch it in—
“They’re here!”
Clang!
“...”
“Oh, sorry. I’ll give you one of my metal cups. Those don’t break even if thrown.”
“...Naelda.”
At the sight of the three squat figures in the distance, Naelda had hurled his cherished teacup (handmade, gift from a dwarf artisan + expensive Silban Straus tea mushrooms) and shot to her feet.
“...How did I end up with such a rogue of an elf...”
“Huh? What’d you say?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Volteus drained the remaining tea in his mouth and rose to follow Naelda.
“Gerry’s face looks all lit up—must be good news! Right?”
“Yes. Lucky us.”
“Heh heh heh heh! A wizard, a water wizard! Volteus, once this is over, let’s buy a flowerpot and grow a little tree! A wizard might manage it!”
“A tree... Planning to buy precious things with money you don’t have.”
“No, that’s exactly the difference it makes! Elves know tons of tree benefits humans don’t! Just mix a bit of green into that pitch-black head of yours—”
“We’ll look into it later.”
“Oh?”
Naelda whipped around, stunned as if she hadn’t expected permission.
“You—you bastard, you said it yourself! You clearly said it! I swear on the five surviving sacred world trees, you promised to get one!”
She reiterated the promise, then leaped off the rooftop lest he backtrack.
Whoosh—thud!
Her cheer and the dwarves’ boasts faintly carried with the rough landing.
‘Good moments always feel too short.’
Volteus roughly straightened the messy rooftop with his foot and headed for the stairs.
Just as good moments came unexpectedly, another day like today would come someday.
For now, Volteus was content with seeing Naelda’s usually sullen face smiling.
****
Thud thud thud!
“Ahh, this is the head car~ Can you hear me, Volteus?”
Thud thud thud!
[I can hear you. The passenger cars have voice amplifiers to relay the trainmaster’s words from the start.]
“Okay, good.”
[Then, shall I hear what this must-be-heard story is, given that I’m two cars away from you?]
Volteus’s voice came through the horn-shaped receiver.
Upon arriving at the station, I’d asked where the safest, most secure spot was, and when the Railship engineers unanimously said here, I’d dragged them straight to the train.
“Little bro. Oh, can I call you little bro now? Brassol uncle already gave permission anyway.”
“Yes, sis.”
“Alright. I dragged everyone down here ‘cause your face looked sincerely grave, but what wild tale are you about to spin that needs us all here? In a place where ‘no prying eyes or ears matter,’ and with the condition that ‘Volteus is far from the professor’?”
“Well...”
“Speak up. Can’t hear over the engine.”
“It’s that—!”
I cleared my young throat in front of the magic engine blasting at max output to block eavesdropping.
Clang clang clang clang!
Roar! Roooar!
The station at twilight. Engine, magic stones, and flames blaring under the pretense of maintenance.
“What?”
“Mountain King, mercy!”
“Brassol, on us?”
Conspiracy revealed amid the noise, met with disbelief and shock from those facing it.
Boom!
“...Shut up, all of you.”
And rage.
“Ptoo.”
In the shadows wavering from the magic engine’s heat, Naelda glared at me with a completely changed demeanor.
“Little bro.”
“Yes.”
“Little bro?”
“Yes, sis.”
“Can you take responsibility for those words?”
The elf knelt on the oil-stained floor, fixing me with a chilling stare.
“Answer carefully. The responsibility I mean carries the weight of twenty Railship engineers’ lives—you might have to stake yours on whether your words are true.”
Tap. Tap.
Naelda tapped the floor with a small, pointed tool, locking eyes with me.
‘Come to think of it, her fingers are slightly curved inward.’
Fingers perfectly bent for gripping a tool or projectile that size. Unless elves in this era gripped pencils like exam-takers until their fingers warped, it meant Naelda had honed throwing to deform her fingers.
‘That driver she’s tapping with now means she’ll drill a hole in my forehead if I’m lying.’
One thing was clear: Naelda was taking seriously the story I’d suddenly spilled.
An extravagant tale from a nine-year-old she’d met less than a day ago—and the fact it was getting through at all was something.
“...I can’t guarantee it perfectly, but based on what I saw and heard, it seems certain.”
I pressed my mouth close to the head car receiver so Volteus, several cars away, could hear, and repeated it.
“The Brassol family is targeting you, Sir Volteus. They think your fragment absorbed the missing lord fragment from the last subjugation, and they’ll do anything to secure it.”
Boom!
“You rotten root blight bastard—!”
Naelda’s roar shook the train as I calmly stated the truth.
[...]
Volteus on the other end fell silent.
****
[Using the soul jar’s catalyst to cast necromancy from afar, that’s the plan. Professor, do you have that pouch on you now?]
“Yes. That’s why I said you and I needed some distance, Sir Volteus.”
“Ugh! Why’d you bring such a cursed thing? Gimme. I’ll chuck it in the far trash heap.”
[Better not, Gerry. If they’re smart, they wouldn’t send a nine-year-old with it unprotected. A catalyst strong enough for remote soul magic—they’d naturally track its location. You’re set to join us, professor, so if it leaves, they might realize the plan’s blown.]
Gerry startled and pulled back at Volteus’s voice from the receiver.
Right after spilling the plan’s background, details, and my mission. The Railship mechanics, including Naelda, hurried to finish opening the train’s spots for maintenance, while the rest, like the firemen, devised countermeasures.
“Damn it! Why not hit us the moment we entered? A city-scale strike force would overwhelm us.”
“They know we won’t go down easy. Not worth the fight? Fortress cities treat their own property like the sky but others’ like temporary loans anyway.”
“Uh... I thought Railship had about five knight-grade fighters, but where are the rest?”
“They’re rentals. Knights and wizards ride free, always priority seating, but they pull their weight protecting the train en route. The three Aura Knights and one Shard Knight who got off were heading from Straug to Pardau Fortress. They were escorting workers laying new tracks in dungeon subjugation zones on their return.”
“Ah.”
Bad news. Four knight-grades I’d counted in our forces weren’t actually ours.
[They won’t just strike our outnumbered group due to fortress city culture—they hate losses. Even if Straug and Pardau coordinated, leaks could spread anywhere. Word of a city attacking a train would isolate not just them but all of Polgrad Island. They want a containable situation.]
“That too. They’re building an outpost in the new bedrock zone now—if we clash and they take losses, fewer troops for protection. They’re in a fierce scramble over new territory shares; fewer reinforcements mean less cut of the pie. So they’re trying to handle it without losses.”
“Corner us in the dungeon subjugation rights fight without yielding ground, then divvy us up...”
Tech, culture, lifestyles all changed, yet this stayed the same after 200 years.
Listening to the engineers’ worldly talk, I got a sense of Pardau Fortress’s scheme.
They couldn’t abandon new land rights. ‘Livable space’ was humanity’s top priority. Both cities invested massively in subjugation wars for that.
Having invested, they needed max returns on secured land. Amid ownership squabbles over land and tracks, a juicy target appeared with bulging eyes?
Want the new land, and Volteus’s rare fragment—maybe humanity’s strongest potential plus a lord fragment.
Brassol, unwilling to give up either, kept troop support for track work but skimped on Railship to reap easy gains.
“...When will train maintenance finish?”
“20 hours at least. We did basics when mechanics arrived, but didn’t expect to run this soon—finishing up will take time.”
“20 hours. Until lunch tomorrow...”
No word from the wizard yet. No clue what Brassol and the soul sorcerer awaited, but time for countermeasures seemed sufficient.
“Sir Volteus.”
[Speak.]
“You seemed to know about soul sorcery and sorcerers earlier.”
City politics and families aside, the urgent threat was the hands targeting Volteus.
[Living as a Shard Knight, you pick it up. I know a few soul sorcerers outside cities too. Meet them periodically.]
“Then, can you tell what this spell means? Uh... ‘Activates via soul jar catalyst, creates rift in target’s mental world, stimulates fragment memory consump—’”
[Stimulates fragment memory consumption. I know it. Common, vicious necromancy. Most used against Shard Knights.]
Luckily, Volteus knew it without digging deeper.
“What kind of spell?”
[Exactly as written. Stimulates fragment memory consumption, making the Shard Knight unable to handle fragments.]
Memory consumption? Can’t handle fragments?
My silence drew a low sigh from Volteus over the receiver.
[Do you know what fragments are?]
“Yes. Crystals containing dead souls, right...”
[Yes. Accepting a fragment means grafting that soul into the Shard Knight’s own.]
Hesitation colored Volteus’s voice.
[Shard Knights draw inherited power from past souls that way. The fragments we graft are souls that would curse everyone they met—pure evil.]
[They demand the Shard Knight’s memories in exchange for lending theirs.]
“Memories...?”
[Yes. Memories. A trade of sorts. We gain unexperienced knowledge and skills, but the evil soul in the fragment claims part of a human life not yet consumed by malice. That’s ‘fragment memory consumption.’]
‘I see.’
Based on fragments being data souls, it made sense.
Most fragments were corrupted data souls, broken by endless pain and death.
Like starving ones lunging for bread, fallen souls clung to the ‘living memories’ of uncorrupted data souls.
...Wait.
‘Then, accumulating fragments for power means...’
Chill!
“Vo... Sir Volteus? If I may ask... what memories did you trade?”
[I don’t know.]
Damn.
[The choice is theirs. They take memories matching the power they grant—whatever suits their taste. We never know what or which.]
Damn damn damn!
[That’s why Aura and Shard can’t coexist. Aura is the pinnacle of a rigidly built ego. A Shard Knight’s soul, holed from sacrifices, can’t reach Aura’s power. Conversely, an Aura Knight’s solidified self can’t accept Shard power—they can’t yield parts.]
Volteus’s calm tale continued over the receiver.
That’s why he stressed mental cultivation so much.
[No power without price. We despise Aura Knights not just for self-centeredness. In this hopeless world, paying grants power to embrace not just self but others—yet they choose never to harm themselves. So we loathe those clutching Aura while preaching knighthood.]
Shard Knights carved away parts of themselves to grow stronger.
“Then, stimulating fragment memory consumption means...”
[Further memory loss, insanity in severe cases. Sometimes, the fragment soul devours the Shard Knight’s entire existence.]
[Happens often to under-cultivated Shard Knights absorbing beyond-capacity fragments, even without sorcery.]
Other souls mixed in start craving beyond traded memories.
Corrupted data souls. Fallen souls seizing bodies of still-living World entities.
What atrocities would an evil soul wreak with a Shard Knight’s power and body?
[...Just in case: usually, killing them before it reaches that is courteous to all.]
I couldn’t respond to Volteus voicing the all-too-familiar ‘wasteland courtesy.’
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